Page 53 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Three weeks later

‘CARA,HEY.HAVEYOUseen today’s headlines? Yer man is back in New York. It’s all over the news.’

Cara lifted herself off the rocky ledge to see her middle brother, Connor, running up the bank towards her waving his mobile phone.

Her heart jolted in her chest. Her eyes burned.

Logan.He had to be talking about Logan.

She’d been avoiding the news ever since the press had finally left her alone, convinced at last that she had no intention of giving any exclusive interviews. And once ‘Colton’s Secret Lair’ had been uncovered in Lapland, the press had switched their attention back to Finland.

So, Logan had finally been forced to return to the US, the place where he had only bad memories. Probably for his own safety.

Anger roiled in her gut, right alongside a wave of guilt. What gave those vultures the right to change his life? To force him out of his home? His sanctuary?

‘I’m not interested, Connor,’ she said, trying to convince herself it was true. ‘He’s not my man.’ And he never really had been.

Connor let his phone drop, his breath heaving after the run up the hill from the farm.

‘Well, you should be,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Because that’s not all. Darragh has just phoned Mam,’ he said, mentioning her youngest older brother, who worked at a bank in Wexford. ‘The manager wanted him to inform you, there’s been a huge deposit in your account. He says you should come in to speak to their investment advisors—as it makes no sense to leave it there.’

‘What?’ She stared at him blankly, not sure she’d heard that right.

‘Darragh says it’s millions of euros. It has to be coming from him, for sure,’ he added as his lips tilted in a mischievous smile. ‘Unless you’ve been trapped in some other billionaire’s love nest we don’t know about.’

‘Oh, shut up, Connor.’ She stalked past him, the nausea building under her breastbone.

Why would Logan give her money? It made no sense.

She dragged her phone out of her back pocket, switched it on. News notifications popped up, the headlines hitting her like bullets.

Billionaire Recluse Goes Home to the US

The Colton Orphan Returns from Lapland Exile

ColtonCorp Heir Outed as Celebrated Wood Sculpture Artist LAC

But the pictures were so much worse. Logan at JFK airport, his head covered, as he was rushed into a waiting limo with bodyguards either side of him surrounded by the press. All those people, so many people, how could he survive it after so long alone?

She sucked in a breath, covered her trembling lips with her hand as she clicked on a photo taken through the car window and enlarged it.

Her breath clogged in her lungs. The pain in her heart clawed at her throat.

His eyes were all wrong, the fierce silvery blue now cold and empty and devoid of expression. Like a wounded wolf, defending what little territory it had left.

The vultures had besieged him. Forced him to face the trauma he had spent years protecting himself against.

Just as you tried to do, Cara, because of some foolish notion you could make him whole. When he was already whole.

What Logan did now, what he was forced to do, was none of her business any more. She wiped away the errant tear that leaked down her cheek, like too many others in the past three weeks, and clicked on the home screen to her banking app.

She gasped as the balance displayed.

She’d been close to a thousand euros overdrawn yesterday. Now her account was in credit by... Her brain short-circuited as she tried to register the amount. How many zeros was that now?

Connor whistled beside her. ‘Cara, that’s ten million euros.’ He grasped the phone, began clicking. ‘Comes from a numbered Swiss account,’ he said. ‘No name. But it has to be him, right? Where else could it have come from?’

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